[Futurama has] eccentric yet oddly sympathetic characters, scores of clever pop-culture homages, and a unique visual aesthetic that isn't afraid to experiment with a variety of styles both vintage and modern.

Archer is a wonder in that its most fiercely flawed characters are its inextinguishable heroes, and their stylized comeuppance arrives in ways that are perpetually unpredictable and altogether resonant within the show's singular, emotionally unhinged universe.

With a cast as ostensibly close-knit and in-tune as these actors are, season four of Parks and Recreation illustrates just how far the series has come from its mediocre beginnings, and could very well take it to even greater, and funnier, places.

Futurama is typically about its crew of 30th-century misfits tackling a common-day problem in a futuristic environment, one that usually starts rather trivially and grows into total chaos. This formula is untouched in the excellent season premiere.

Game of Thrones's second season is not as wholly engrossing as its first, and the blame for this rests solely on the source material, that, while commendable, isn't as altogether vital as the initial novel.

In its eighth season, It's Always Sunny doesn't try very many new things, but the writers are smart enough to know not to mess with a successful formula, and the series carries itself with an air of aplomb that many comedies rarely come close to exhibiting.

Charlie (Charlie Day), Mac (Rob McElhenney), Dennis (Glenn Howerton), Dee (Kaitlin Olson), and Frank (Danny DeVito) are as magnetically dysfunctional as ever, and their neurotic efforts to scheme their way to happiness, fame, and fortune continue to coincide with skewed views on a variety of real-world issues that blend well with the show's onslaught of crude, scattershot humor.

Community is at its most watchable not when it's tackling some real-world hot-button issue via the guise of a Greendale Community College campus event, but when it's examining the interactions of its main characters.

The series loses some of its drive by its dreary fourth episode, when a labored love triangle between Carroll's disciples mars the overall flow of the central arc. ... Until that point, though, The Following is mostly engaging, even if it never truly substantiates its antagonist's godlike stature in the eyes of his worshipers.

Where Mad Men branches out its individual narratives in a variety of ways, letting its characters deal with problems not related to the workplace, Masters of Sex seems rigidly anchored to its basic premise.

While there's no doubt that The League's third season is off to an entertaining start, the show's main problem remains that it's a comedy about friendship that lacks sympathetic and emotionally identifiable characters.

Strangely, the fourth season of Eastbound & Down exudes a somber tone that flies in the face of the show's typically rambunctious tendencies. Kenny is crankier than in the past, and his staunchly vexed attitude throws the proceedings a bit off balance.

When Da Vinci's Demons is barreling at top speed, unapologetically defiling history with its macabre absurdity, as in the surprisingly exciting second episode, "The Serpent," which ditches the disconnected structure of the pilot for a full-on detective yarn with an unexpected last-minute twist (think Sherlock Holmes set in the Renaissance), the show's faults, however obvious they may be, gradually fall by the wayside.

The muddled and recurrently tedious Larsen case, littered with irrelevant conspiracy-theory subplots (what the hell is up with Holder's AA "sponsor"?) render The Killing a mystery show whose mysteries agitate and bore rather than mesmerize and astound.

Nicholas Wootton's uniformly by-the-book series quickly eradicates itself of any authentic tension by unwisely depicting its hero alive and well (despite a slight limp that has yet to be thoroughly explained) seven years in the future.

Their life sucks--and most likely always will, but the trick is learning to live with that fact. Out There believes its characters can prosper in doing so, but doesn't collectively make an honest effort to portray their compassed journey in an imaginative fashion.

Coming from J.J. Abrams's aptly-titled Bad Robot Productions, Almost Human certainly has the means to develop into something more innovative, but as it hardly makes an effort to differentiate from the material it habitually duplicates, it's a series that repeatedly finds itself on the fritz.

The strain that comes with continuing to care about Ryan's sad-sack existence, one that's a direct result of his own insecurities and poor decisions, vastly outweighs the amusement packed away within the incidental laughs the series intermittently provides.

Grimm is neither a very strong police procedural nor a supernatural drama, as it sacrifices the intelligence required to construct smart, puzzling crimes in order to spend more time attempting to enunciate its fantastical elements, which aren't all that fantastical, with amateurish CGI.

The visionary environments are without blemish, and the sound design is on the level of some of Hollywood's heavy-hitters. Yet the stodgy inaction between each explosive set piece is so often bereft of substance that to endure Defiance is to lamentably scour its orbit for any exiguous points of engrossment.

Adapted from the British series of the same name, Getting On is billed as a comedy, but the show's setting, a neglected geriatric rehabilitation ward, is such an overwhelmingly depressing environment that much of the offbeat humor ends up flatlining.

There's occasional chemistry between McCormack and Cook, who looks too young for her part as a seasoned federal agent, but instead of trying to build a flimsy romantic bond between the two, the writers would be better served focusing on crafting more thoughtful professional enigmas for their main character to obsess over.

Being confined to a wheelchair might someday teach Ironside some humility, diminishing his round-the-clock animosity as the series progresses, but for now all it's apparently done is turn him into even more of a jerk.

Motive flounders chiefly, however, because it expends lasting suspense by providing the audience with all the hard facts they need up front, subsequently granting them an invitation to leave the party early.

Do No Harm is very busy and very dumb, lobbing ridiculous obstacles at Jason at full speed, both in the workplace (the onslaught of unidentifiable hospital jargon rivals House at its most ludicrous) and at home (Ian ostensibly shattered Jason's marriage by beating his wife).